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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: TULSAMarch 17, 2011Keith BensonReggie HamiltonWill HudsonGreg KampeLarry WrightTULSA, OKLAHOMA THE MODERATOR: We'd like an opening statement from Oakland Head Coach Greg Kampe. COACH KAMPE: Actually, we're excited to be here. There's been a lot of talk during the week about the draw on Texas and all that. But once all that's over and you realize that you've got to play a really good team in the NCAA Tournament, the name across the chest is going to be a big-time school. We're very excited to have the opportunity to play against a great coach like Rick Barnes and the program that he's built at Texas. When they had the drawing on Sunday night, the first question was what do you know about Texas? I said well, not much. I know that they're orange and they have horns on their helmets. Other than that I didn't know much about them. So we've found out a great deal in the last few days, and they're a great basketball team, and we're really excited to have the opportunity to play on national TV against a program such as Texas. THE MODERATOR: Questions for our student-athletes. Q. Reggie, when you guys are operating at maximum offensive efficiency, what are the key ingredients in that happening? REGGIE HAMILTON: Just making sure that we're not turning the ball over, and we're getting good shots and getting it into our big men. We have to establish them early, and I think when we do that, then we're a hard team to guard. Q. What does it mean to you to return to this stage here, and what have you learned from last year and what are your goals in this game? KEITH BENSON: It means a lot to me to get to play in the NCAA Tournament, because a lot of teams don't get this opportunity, and a lot of players don't get it in their whole careers. I think I got experience from last year about runs and how to overcome that and keep playing, because after we got our injury, people kind of got down last year, and then the game kind of got out of our hands. So we're going to try not to let that happen this year. Q. Do you approach this game differently than last year from the standpoint of being a higher seed for you guys? Is there any fear, or, not necessarily fear, do you feel like you've lost that sense of maybe being wide-eyed a little bit coming into the tournament for the second time? KEITH BENSON: No, I don't think we're scared. We're coming in with the mindset of getting the upset; and we think that anybody can get beat, so we're just coming in, trying to play hard. I came in last year to win also, but I'm coming in with the same mindset. Q. Keith, you guys played a tough, non-conference schedule. Played a lot of big schools. How much do you think that will benefit you guys? What did you guys get from playing those games that you think might help you against Texas? KEITH BENSON: I think you see our weaknesses when you play against really high-ranked teams. So coming in the arenas, everybody kind of saw what they needed to work on. And they saw as good as they can get playing the No. 1 team. So we're going to take that confidence getting a win over a ranked team and try to bring that into this game. Q. Talk about you're the winningest player in the program's history. You've been here a long time. You've been through the process, back-to-back tournaments now, talk about the mark you've left on this program and making Oakland as far as transitioning, into one of the bigger powers in major basketball? WILL HUDSON: It means a lot to leave a mark like that on this university. But it's everything I learned from the previous seniors and the previous players that have played before me. You know, it's just trying to take where they left off and continuing the program up until your senior year when you're done. I have full faith that my teammates after me will break my records. Q. People look at your inside game, but talk about this team's ability to make shots from the perimeter and your inside-out game and how that functions? KEITH BENSON: Well, at the beginning of the game we try to get the ball inside and then we see where the double team's going to come from. When I get the ball I try to throw it out to Travis Bader or Reggie Hamilton and get open shots, and if we knock down our three-point shots in the beginning of the game, they usually go away from the double team. So it kind of plays into our offense and helps everybody get into a flow. Q. You've been on a pretty good role here. The last game you lost was IUPUI and you got into foul trouble. What was the issue in that game and how do you avoid it now? KEITH BENSON: Yeah, I just try to be smart with my fouls and try to space them out and limit myself to how many I'm going to get in the first half and stuff like that. I just thought they called some calls that weren't fouls in that game, but I don't know. I just try to avoid that. Q. Could you just talk about your role as the team's sixth man? It's an honor you got into the conference and it's a role you stepped into. Could you talk about how important of a role you may play tomorrow against Texas? LARRY WRIGHT: My role tomorrow will be very important coming off the bench and keeping that energy up that the guys start. My role is -- it was complicated for me at first, but my teammates and everybody, the coaching staff has really helped me picking me up and stuff off the bench. So it's a role that I'm taking in. Q. I don't know how detailed your scouting report is on Longhorn individual players. Do you have any thoughts on J'Covan Brown one of their top reserve guards coming off the bench? REGGIE HAMILTON: I know he'll be look to go score the ball. So we just have to stay to our principles all year that we had in our scouting reports when it comes to scores. Just make sure all his shots are tough. So just make it hard for him. He's a good player. We can't lose confidence if he makes a tough shot. Just got to keep staying in his face. Q. Do you have full confidence that you'll be able to dictate the pace in this game and get it to a point level that you've enjoyed all year? REGGIE HAMILTON: Yeah, I'm very confident. I had a great week of practice, and I know my team depends on me to get things started. So without my confidence, I think we're off to a bad start already, so I'm very confident. Q. Talk about are you guys happy to be in Tulsa? You played Oral Roberts here, and talk about your familiarity with the city, does that help you guys at all? KEITH BENSON: Well, we've been here before, so it's just we're comfortable, so we're seen it before. But I don't really think that it makes that much of a difference because we just come from the hotel to the gym and stuff like that. It's not that big of a difference. Q. You seemed like you had something to add last time I asked about the fouls at IUPUI, was there something you wanted to contribute there? REGGIE HAMILTON: Well, the game wasn't called the way we wanted it to be called, but, you know, that happens. So we've just got to learn how to play through those things. We kind of hope to get another chance at them in the championship game but that didn't happen. So they'll be on our schedule and a big target for next year. Q. Greg mentioned at the top there that the seeding whole thing, the 13 and 4 in Texas, have you let that go? Or is that still an issue in your mind that they're just a little -- that the seeding is incorrect there? REGGIE HAMILTON: That's just a number. We're here, and we're going to go out there and compete and try to get the W. COACH KAMPE: By the way, the free throws were 34-6 in that game. We shot six free throws. We shoot about 25 a game. Q. I wanted to ask the same question I asked Keith as far as scheduling the tough non-conference, what you thought the team got out of that this year as far as did that experience going up against those kind of teams? COACH KAMPE: We do it every year. This year was a little bit more because of Keith. We had a chance to play Ohio State with Sullinger and Purdue, and Johnson. So it gave him a chance to showcase that -- you know, NBA scouts come in and watch us play against mid-major teams and they say he can't do this. How do we know he can do this? Well, I can slap tape on them now that he played those teams. That's why we did it. I mean, seven of them. Normally we do four or five. We do it because it exposes us in November and December. We find out what we can and can't do against the best, and that gives us what we have to work on, what we've got to get better at so that when we get in our league we've seen everything. The other thing is, we're at Illinois with an 11-point lead in the second half, and they go on a run, and 15,000 people get in it and we folded. The next time we were at Tennessee, we had that lead and the run came, and we handled it, and we handled the crowd. In our conference semifinals we had to play on South Dakota State in front of 6,000 blue and yellow people, and it didn't bother us at all. When you play in front of 15,000 you learn from it, so that's why we do it. Q. You guys I'm sure would have liked to be a little closer to home. But you come to a place that you're familiar with, is that a positive, or do you think Tulsans here will be rooting for you guys tomorrow night? COACH KAMPE: Well, I think it's a very positive. We wanted to be in Chicago or Cleveland so our students could get there. We've got a couple of students coming. But it was 80 bucks an airline ticket. I spent over $3,000 to get my family here. So that was the disappointment. But it is what it is. We're happy to be here. I think that from what I've been told people in Oklahoma don't like Texas, and I've been told if we can get going, they're going to be cheering for us. And we are OU, right? Oakland University, OU, so maybe they'll get confused and think that black is maroon, I don't know. But we're hoping those people will cheer for us, yes. Q. Can you articulate what Keith's meant to you this season, Player of the Year in the league, and the double-double and all that stuff? COACH KAMPE: Keith Benson in 27 years is the best basketball player I've ever coached. I said after our conference tournament I don't know that he's the greatest player in league history, because Bryce Drew, George Hill, and Graham Marshall have played for us. There's been a lot of great players that have come out of our conference but he's the most dominant player that's ever played in our conference. He can dominate a game three ways: He can dominate by scoring, he can dominate it on the defensive glass, and he can really dominate it blocking shots. At our level in in our league you would see kids just drive into the lane and stop because they knew that ball was coming back at them. So when you can do that, obviously your team's going to be good. And people say, man, you guys have had a heck of a run. Yeah, we have had a heck of a run, but we better have had a heck of a run because there aren't a lot of 6'11" pros that play in our league. There's been a lot of pressure on him, but he's done what he's supposed to do. I'm very grateful and fortunate to have been able to coach him. Q. Last night on ESPN we saw the special with Barack Obama doing his brackets. He picked against Oakland. Your thoughts? COACH KAMPE: I didn't vote for him either, so I guess we're even now. We're even (laughing). I don't think a lot of people are picking us. If you look at it, wasn't Texas the No. 1 team in the country two or three weeks ago. I don't know how they fell to a 4 seed. But I'm not on that committee. I don't sit in there and look at all the information. All I know is we have to play Texas and we're getting ready. Q. You guys are the highest scoring team in the country. Expecting an up-and-down game and score to get to the hundreds? COACH KAMPE: I've always thought Texas played that way. But the more research we've done on them, I mean, their scoring defense is phenomenal. I tell you what, when they laid their stats in front of me about an hour after that selection show, and I saw defensive field goal percentage and 29% from the three, I started crying. Oh, my gosh, you know. I didn't realize how good defensively they were. I know Rick is just a great defensive coach. I've known that about him. But I've always thought with Texas -- you know, I watched a little of Kansas game, they get up and down and those teams like to run. I'm just hoping they want to run with us. I think if it is a fast-paced game, I think we'll have a chance. We'll try to make it fast-paced. We score a lot of points, but we don't have -- when you look at a team that scores 86 a game, you think there are a lot of possessions, but there really aren't. We don't press. We sprint the ball up the floor, but if it's not there, we want Keith to touch it. It's not like we're going to jack it up. Keith better touch that basketball. But we're just really efficient in how we score. We have a stat called offensive efficiency, and it's the highest in 27 years as a coach. We score 1.23 points per possession. A great year is about 1.10. So I don't know if you understand, or I don't even know if I understand it, but it's unbelievable the efficiency that we score with. We shoot it real well. We can score at the basket, and we get fouled a lot except for that one IUPUI game. Q. Could you describe any differences, if there are any, and what you've seen with the mindset of this group compared to when they came into the tournament last year? COACH KAMPE: There is a huge difference. We went to the tournament for the first time -- we've gone three times in seven years. In 2005 we had a Cinderella team. A kid that wasn't even going to be on the team made a three-point shot at the buzzer. I mean, we were taking our clothes off. We were running around. Last year or the year before we had gotten beat, we had blew a 13-point lead in the last five minutes. So that team had a mission. When that mission was completed and we won, we were again diving on the floor after the championship game. This year when we won if you watch the end of that game, we were standing in line down there shaking hands. And last year I heard we're going to the Sweet 16, doing all this kind of stuff. I haven't heard any of that. All I've heard is Texas, okay. So I think there is a completely different mindset from this group who has been there versus the previous. Q. Talking more about that. How has the process worked? You go from Division II 11 years ago to three NCAA Tournaments since 2005. How exactly does that work? COACH KAMPE: Players. You go out and you recruit really good players and then can you do that. I've got maybe two pros on this team. Reggie's proven that he's going to get an opportunity. And Benson they're talking about late lottery, mid first round. So if you have really good players, you're going to look like you know what you're doing, and you're going to win games. So the key to everything is recruiting. Q. I was wondering how Lucas-Perry's been in practice for you this year, and what role you anticipate him having next year? COACH KAMPE: We tried to get him eligible this year, we did appeal. Man, would he -- he's a good player. He's a big, strong kid. In our offense, I think he'll really thrive in the fast pace up and down, dribble-drive stuff that we do. We expect great things out of him next year. We lose Larry Wright and he's going to step right into Larry Wright's spot. And Larry can't hear me, but he might even be better. Larry's been great for us, but hopefully Laval can even raise as will's talked about, our senior's every year raising the level. Q. Does J'Covan Brown jump out at you when you study Texas on tape at all? COACH KAMPE: They all jump. Man, can they jump. Every one of those guys can jump, that's the key to the team. I think their offense start when's they shoot it. I'm not sure what they do. But when they shoot -- one time I counted 37 hands up above the rim. I'm not quite sure where they all came from, but they all had orange on. Yeah, he's a good player. We think he wants to go right. We think he's got some tendencies, but he may be so good that he can go through those tendencies and we can't stop him anyways. Scoring the ball for them has been a bit of an issue, and they're so great defensively that that's usually when you have a great defensive team, it works that way. We score the ball real easy and sometimes we struggle to stop people from scoring. I just think that's the game. So if they shoot it really well tomorrow, and if Brown gets it going, it's going to be a long day for the Grizzlies. Q. As a guy who has one of the country's top big men, talk about what you've seen from Tristan Thompson? COACH KAMPE: Well, he's athletic and long, and he poses problems. You know what he does, is he offensive rebounds, and he's a machine to that. I'll tell you a quick story. I have a dog, and every time my front doorbell rings, my dog runs to the front door. We open the door and it's never been for him. But every time that bell rings, he goes. That's how Tristan is on the offensive glass. Every time a shot goes up, he's going for it. That's why he's such a great offensive rebounder. I tell my players if I can get you to rebound like my dog goes to the door, we've got a chance to be good. Q. What's your dog's name? COACH KAMPE: My dog's name is G. Just the letter G. My son named it. Q. What kind of dog is it? COACH KAMPE: It's a soft-haired Wheaten Terrier. It's a great dog, too. Do you think there's ever been a press conference where they asked the coach what his dog's name was before? Holy cow. I'm not sure that's good (laughing). FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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